![IX. Repristination [2]](https://www.writerscafe.org/images/no_image_t.jpg){kind=small}
IX. Repristination [2]A Chapter by Writer #00IX.~Re ~prist ~i ~na ~tion Despite the low volume at which I uttered said realization, Dale still managed to hear me, and he stopped the truck, hopping out onto the trail and explaining the whole AWOL Sasha situation to Mrs. Diaz. She seemed a bit flustered, unsure of how to get Sasha and make it to the runway in time for when the police arrived, but Dale eventually convinced her that even if we did arrive late, the police wouldn’t just leave us (I mean, it would be pretty messed up if they did, right?). Some would have to stay for investigation, and Felix and Mrs. Castillion would tell them that there were three other people on their way. “But what about JJ?” I inquired, having now joined Dale on the side of the truck to talk to Mrs. Diaz as well, “will he be okay?” Mrs. Diaz didn’t respond at first, then laid her speculations down on us. “To be honest, there isn’t much of a pulse and he’s barely breathing,” she admitted, not looking at either of us, her near-white blonde hair curtaining whatever emotions lay in the brown depths of her eyes, “There’s already a small chance he’ll live--he’s nearly exsanguinated--but if I could get some help for him in the next ten, fifteen minutes; then, maybe, he’d make it.” None of us said anything, and I sensed one of those time-consuming pre-grief silences about to take root on the side of the path where Dale’d pulled the truck over, so I made sure to evict it before it could settle in and multiply. JJ’s life was on the line, a ticking-time bomb, an hourglass whose falling sand was slowly burying him alive, and we didn’t have time to waste in silence. “I’ll go by myself, on foot, and you and Dale go ahead, I--“ “Absolutely not, Harrison!” Mrs. Diaz scolded, turning to look at me from the trunk, “there’s something murderous and merciless on this island, I won’t lie to you, so going anywhere alone is out of the question.” “But what about Sasha?!” I protested, my voice coming out raspy as I attempted to raise it, “he’s all alone right now, isn’t he? He hasn’t come back to the Mess Hall--who knows what’s happened to him?! I can’t do nothing!” And yes, I meant that double-negative literally. “Well that’s Sasha’s problem, he shouldn’t have left. You guys tried to stop him; he didn’t listen to you, now whatever happens happens.” “You can’t be ser--“ “Harrison, I’m sure the investigation team will find him.” “What--dead?” “If that’s what happens, then I suppose so.” She didn’t yell at me, or have any slight hint of contempt or vexation in her tone, it was more of…pity…pity and a therapeutic relaxedness. It creeped me out almost as much as the gibberish Greek in the shed. “We’re wasting time standing here bickering. We’re either going to lose JJ because we sit on the side of the road all night, we get him medical attention the moment the police arrive and save his life, or we lose him going back for Sasha.” I had nothing to say, unable to look the nurse in the eye, focusing on her subtly gesturing hands with all of those pointless rings--five a finger--all ranging from silver to copper, jangling about. Except…there was something different. Her right middle finger. It was empty. “Mom,” Dale began, interrupting my thoughts and looking at her determinately, “why don’t you take the driver’s seat--make sure JJ gets help in time--and I’ll go with Harr--“ Mrs. Diaz was shaking her head before Dale had said “take the driver’s seat”. “If I wouldn’t let one of your teammates go off, why do you think I’d let you, my own flesh and blood?” “But that was only because Harrison was going to be alone, I wouldn’t be alone--neither of us would--we’d have each other.” She seemed to be considering it, and Dale quickly added, “Harrison has Felix’s phone, so we can call if something terrible happens. Please, it’s my fault Sasha’s even out of the Mess Hall, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if--“ “Fine,” Mrs. Diaz submitted, already climbing into the front of the truck and taking it out of ‘reverse’, “but you have to be back on the path in twenty minutes, whether or not you find the boy, so someone can come pick you guys up, okay?” We nodded, grabbing the shovel and hoe I’d snagged from the shed (we’d taken it with us), and checking the time as of now--8-ish--before heading back into the forest to begin our search. --- Felix’s phone had one of those usually pointless flashlight apps, fortunately, so we were able to see a surprisingly good distance in front of us as we took an unfamiliar path into the forest. Un. Familiar. You can imagine how much worse that made the whole nighttime rescue party of two for me, can’t you? But it had to be done, we’d obviously not made any progress on the trail intersecting the baseball field, so checking the first fork in the road was our best bet; somewhere we hadn’t been. Woodchips snapped under our soles, adding to the mildly ominous sounds of the night--crickets, wind-rustled pine needles, the muffled sound of waves. I would abruptly jerk the celllight off the path and into the dark, foreboding bowls of the flanking conifers from time to time depending on how the night decided to aurally express itself, and Dale would give me a worried side-glance to see if I was okay. At least, I hope that was what he was doing because I’d been replying with “I’m fine, don’t worry.” Each time. Otherwise, I probably sounded like one of those paranoid people who begin to talk to themselves in self-reassurance while rocking back-and-forth in the feeble position. Hm, I wonder… “D-do you…” Dale started, before his voice decrescendoed upon a presumed decision not to continue. “Do I what?” I encouraged, hoping conversation would help calm my nerves. “Do you know what it said?” Yeah, thanks for the vagueness. I already had to analyze most of his statements as if it were a mathematic word problem, so using empty pronouns really didn’t help get his message across. “Um…can you be more specific?” “In the shed. It dripped.” The sound of ocean waves was growing louder, as if it were a hidden whisper beyond the talk of the pine leaves. “You mean…the message at JJ’s feet?” I clarified, said message reappearing before me, being re-described by the horrific countenance into my mind’s ear: “Listen to the song of the sirens.” Dale gave me a quizzical look, I assumed, even though the pale white of the cellular light reflected a similar glare in his glasses, painting over his eyes. “Wall. That’s where it was; Greek.” He restated choppily, mixing up the usual order of words as he frequently did…with me. It took me a few minutes to remember what he was talking about, believe it or not. We came to another divide in the trail and took the one leading in the direction of the water, deducing not to split up as the path to the right seemed to make a U-turn back to the baseball diamond. “Oh, on the back wall,” I finally recalled, not intending for it to be a question, but Dale responded in answer, anyway. “Yes--you know some Greek, right?” “Y-yeah…” Had I mentioned that before? How did he know? “But I’m not that good. I couldn’t translate it into anything sensible; didn’t even get a few words out of it.” Saying that aloud reminded me of something that might come in handy, “West is better with the language than I, maybe he can translate it.” Again, nothing but the sound of our walking and the psychologically taxing symphony of the night filled the air; then: “The message at his feet…I didn’t notice it. Could you translate…?” Dale asked, the trail meandering to the left and downhill. “No need,” I told him, “it’s in English: ‘listen to the song of the sirens’. And there was an initial under it, an ‘M’.” “…do you know--think--maybe what it meant?” So you remember that story your Mom told us a few days ago? I think one of the characters in it is, in fact, more than just a character and is somewhere on this island playing freaky hypno-music, gutting people, and leaving ominous messages near good-as-dead bodies. By the way, I’m pretty sure she’s really after me because I’m the reincarnation of her husband…upon whom she would like to dump all her revenge--again. “No clue,” I lied. --- I didn’t know rivers could be so stealthy, but evidently…they can be. It turned out the sound of the waves crashing had actually belonged to the sound of a gently chuckling river--or brook, I don’t know the difference--which, when considered rationally, does not resemble the sound of waves in the least. More like the burbling from a near-done coffeemaker…but without the heat factor. And the portability. Can you blame me though? I was still experiencing underlying shock from the back-to-back horrors of the day and I’d never been the type to frequent the beach anyway, so it’s not like trivial background noise like the sounds of the waves would really stick, you know? ... Well, even if you don’t know--moving on. Dale had noticed it first, slithering through the shadows of the forest a few meters or so off the trail (the river, that is). I’d flashed Felix’s phone in the direction he indicated and, past the stretched silhouettes of the conifers, I could see the minute reflection of water. “Do you think we should check the bank?” I asked Dale, both of us standing on the edge of the path, debating whether or not we should cross the boundary between manmade, dirt guidance and the natural maze of trees that was the forest of Icthyes. “How…would that help?” he asked. “The river banks,” I clarified. Dale nodded, figuring there was no better place we could search seeing as this trail was beginning to converge into the bike path, gripped the handle of his hoe, and cautiously stepped into the woods. I followed, shining light steadily ahead of us, less steadily--sporadic, even--when my mind managed to transform the snapping of a twig or the croak of a frog into something much more lethal. The hoots of owls seemed to foretell death, and the rustling pine needles became the result of some unseen phantom slinking through the evergreens with malevolent intent. I whisked the light of the phone jerkily to the right, where I thought I saw a figure lying in wait, only finding it to be a boulder; again, to the left, the illumination of fireflies seemed to me millions of predatorous eyes peering at us through the velvety blackness of a scarcely moonlit night. Something touched my shoulder gently, but my nerves responded before my sense and I swung the head of my shovel behind me, redirecting the light as I did so and letting out a shrill shout. Thank God (thank you, God) for Dale’s quick reflexes, otherwise I would have surely shattered his skull with the force of my swing. Or maybe not, it’s not like I’d ever hit a baseball too far--and those have the help of a pitcher’s throw. At any rate, Dale was able to dodge my frantic attack, half ducking and half dropping to the ground, rapidly brandishing his tool before him in case I struck again. I was frozen from relief and residual fright for a good six seconds, staring down at him and slowly registering the mortification I had just brought upon myself; then, I lowered the shovel, letting it rest at my side. The pitcher gave me a sheepish smile, getting to his feet. “Just me,” he confirmed, repositioning his glasses and brushing the dirt off his bottom. “S-sorry,” I apologized, “I’m just paranoid.” He nodded, “I’m a little afraid, too.” Thank you, Dale, for making me feel completely unprotected. We ventured down to the banks of the river, scanning them for anything that might possibly be a body and, as we searched, I decided to ease the tension of the claustrophobic proximity of the trees by starting an exchange in dialogue. I wasn’t exactly sure what to talk about, though, so I opted to bring up something I figured might lighten the mood. “Do you shave in bed?” I asked him which, in hindsight, was just a weird, weird way to ‘lighten the mood’. He was understandably taken aback by my inquiry, but I think I saw the corner of his mouth twitch into a partial smile. “What makes you think that?” I shrugged. “I made up your bed the other day--“ “That was you?” “Yeah…it got a bit boring just lying around the cabin, so I made up everyone’s bed.” “Thanks.” “Um…no problem--When I changed your sheets I found a lot of hair...so I was just wondering if you knew how it got there.” Dale tensed in a way that reminded me of how his mother had tensed when I’d asked her about the article on her, err, hat. So long to lightening the mood. “Sorry, if it’s something you don’t want--“ I began, before Dale abruptly cut me off, rolling up his sleeves and thrusting his arm out with a: “Feel it.” “Um…what?” “My arm. Feel it…answers.” “It…answers?” “No. If you feel my arm, I’ll answer your--no, what I mean is: feeling my arm will answer your question,” he still held his arm out, well-built and lightly muscled from pitching, I guess. I did as he requested, poking his arm cautiously. “Come on, really feel it. Touch it,” he urged, guiding my hand across his incredibly smooth--as in: had the guy waxed--arm. “You don’t have any hair on your--“ He was now sitting, pulling up his pant leg and pulling down his sock to reveal his glossy left leg. “None here, either?” I deduced, eying him. He nodded. “This is going to sound crazy…but I’ve been shedding, Harrison.” “Okay,” I said with a shrug, getting back to searching for Sasha, “I believe you.” Then, wanting to get off the topic of Dale’s unnaturally hairless legs before he showed me another part of his body, decided to switch to dialogue another subject, “Has your mom told you the story of the angler’s wife before?” To which Dale responded in the most cryptic way possible to respond to a yes-no question. “Maybe.” “She tells so many stories you can’t keep up with them?” I presumed, not exactly sure how to respond to such a neutral answer. “I don’t know. My parents are divorced and I live with my dad, this is the most interaction my mom and I have had for years, but maybe she told me some stories when I was younger and I just forgot.” Dot, dot, dot. “I’m sorry,” he apologized…for some reason, “it’s awkward now, isn’t it?” “It’s always awkward with you,” I murmured, then clamped my hand over my mouth, not meaning to have said that aloud, “sorry, I--“ Dale chuckled, “It’s fine, I know what you mean. I just can’t help it…it’s hard to focus whenever I’m around you. It’s easier now because I can’t see you and I can pretend I’m talking to something else--“ (Something else?) “--but usually, just looking at you makes me lo--“ I stopped in my tracks, and his words seemed to vanish along with the gurgling of the river and all other noise. A figure lay on the bank, so close that one of its hands was gingerly brushing the surface of the river. I shone the light on the figure, illumining a frail, damp body with a head of soil-darkened dirty-blonde hair. Is he…dead? I wondered, nearing who I presumed to be Sasha with an outstretched hand. Dale kneeled beside him, feeling his pulse. “Unconscious…it looks like.” Sasha was sopping wet, hair and clothes clinging to his bony form and glimmering with the white of the celllight. “Do you think he fell in?” I asked stupidly. Dale didn’t respond, then: “In what?” “The…river…” I told him, eying Sasha’s unmoving body with mild worry. What else would I have been talking about? “Are you sure he’s okay?” “No,” Dale replied honestly, “paralyzed. Maybe. How do we get him back?” I rubbed the pinpricks of my stubble nervously. I’d assumed we’d find Sasha conscious, so I hadn’t taken into account what we would do otherwise. I checked the time on Felix’s phone, disarming the flashlight app temporarily and plunging the brightness of the white into a comparably dimmer blue. 8:16. “We only have four minutes,” I told Dale, “then we have to be back on the main trail.” “Couldn’t we just call Mrs. Diaz--tell her what’s going on?” he suggested, “JJ’s bound to be safe by now.” I nodded. Duh, of course. And if not Mrs. Diaz, then Ali or, heck, even Mrs. Castillion, she was bound to be one of Felix’s contacts. I found the virtual directory and clicked on it, not remembering whatever digits Felix had told me compiled the nurse’s number. I guess the counselor didn’t have much of a social life, because there were only eight names listed, most of which pertained to the retreat: Castillion, Lilly Diaz, Dale Diaz Gottringer, Weston Jung, Eujin Shadow, Smithy Walker, Jim-James Xenos Corp. My finger hovered over my brother’s name. I hadn’t seen him since the first day when he’d fell ill, and I couldn’t help but wonder how he was doing, but one glance at Sasha (and the clock) gave me the strength to move my thumb higher up to Mrs. Diaz’s name. At least, I presumed it was her name… She was the only one on the list whose first name wasn’t listed. I’d have to remember to ask Felix about that. [cell phone rings] “Dale?! Harrison?!” Mrs. Diaz picked up, her voice laced with panic. “Yeah, yeah, it’s Harrison…are you okay?” “Where’s Dale? Is Dale with you? Where is he?!” “He’s right next to me, everything’s fine. Wh--“ “You guys are supposed to be back on the trail right now! Where are you?!” Oops. Guess there may have been a slight time mix-up. “S-sorry, Miss, we thought we still had ti--“ “Well, you don’t! You two had me so worried! I thought something had happened to you two--I hear water. Where are you guys? Are you back at the beach? Please tell me you’re not back at the beach. Why would you--“ “No, Mrs. Diaz, we are not at the beach. We found Sasha near a river.” [relieved sigh muffled conversation: “Are th’ lads okay?” “Harrison says their fine, don’t worry.” “Why would’ya ev’n let ‘em go out with wha’s ‘appenin’? You know what those creatures are cap--“ “Would you mind contacting the police, Felix? Their late. Thank you~!”] “Sorry about that, Harrison, Felix was just worried. Isn’t he a great counselor~?” I breathed into the phone, unable to speak after what I was pretty sure I’d just heard Felix say. Creatures? I think my breath quickened involuntarily as the night played tricks on my mind again. Dale gave me a troubled look. “Harrison? Are you there?” the nurse asked, the edge of panic creeping into her voice once more. I shook the fear out of my head. “Y-yeah. I was just, err, checking to make sure Sasha has a pulse.” “Well, does he?” “Um…yeah. Dale thinks he’s paralyzed. We don’t know what did it to him...” “Well, do you think you could get him to the closest trail. I can bring the truck down there, I suppose.” “Yeah, I think so. We’ll be there soon.” [hangs up] You know what these creatures are... I couldn’t get those words out of my head. Creatures. Not people, not animals, not even, I dunno, ghosts. Something beyond specific classification. Something vague yet menacing. Creatures. Creatures--not creature. Plural. And they lurked on this island, somewhere, maybe searching for me…and maybe bloodthirsty for life of any kind. I gulped, and the fear must have shown in my eyes because Dale looked up from whatever he was doing--staring at the ground?--with brows upturned in concern. “Everything all right?” he asked, “what is it she said?” “N-nothing.” Dale narrowed his eyes. “Nothing? She told you noth--“ “Oh! No, um, yes. She told us to bring Sasha to the nearest road. She said she’d meet us there with the truck.” He nodded, grabbing each of Sasha’s ankles. “You get under the arms, okay?..If-if that is okay with you…” I bent down closer to Sasha’s body, setting the shovel aside to free my right hand, the sound of the river having sunk into the background. I maneuvered my hands beneath his arms, causing his upper body to lift and his head to lag to the side. I made eye contact with Dale, who shivered momentarily before signaling us to get going with a curt assertion of his head. We rose from our squat-kneeling positions roughly at the same time, Sasha strung between our arms like the portable stretcher Dale and I had used to carry JJ into the back of his mom’s pickup truck. Okay, no matter how I phrase that, it’ll just sound sketchy. We didn’t actually get very far this way, well I didn’t get very far (didn’t even arrive at a full stand), due to some sort of resistance from Sasha. As if he were subconsciously clinging to something in the river--maybe a root growing near the bank--with his left hand. Dale cocked his head slightly, having successfully managed to stand while holding the ends of Sasha’s legs. “Are you…okay?” he wondered, seeing as I was still half-kneeling with my hands in Sasha’s armpits. “Um…yeah.” I tugged at the boy’s body some more, trying to refrain from using too much force, but his left hand was still hanging over the river, holding onto, err, the water? “I think his hand’s caught on something…maybe between boulders?” I set my part of Sasha’s body down and scooted the two feet to the edge of the river, peering down at his submerged fingertips. They were perfectly clear of, well, anything. What was keeping him back? The water? I saw a pair of orbs shimmering in the river, perhaps black pearls, shining like the moon on shadowy waters. Or something unseen… I trembled slightly (earning yet another sureyourokay from Dale) then grabbed the boy’s wrist and pulled. After I applied both hands and pulled. This seemed more effective, so I yanked again, the hand starting to become free of the water, when a pair of pale, grey--nearly white--hands shot out from the dark waters, ensnaring my neck in a viselike grip. “Let him go!” An order rising from the waters through a muffled, bubbly filter. “Let him go!” “Harrison!” Dale shouted, dropping Sasha’s feet and, err, yelling, I guess…I wasn’t really paying attention to him at the time…or even my attacker, to be honest, as I’d been abruptly pulled to the ground, and my forehead slammed against the bank. A thunderhead of pain shot through my forehead, radiating into my cranium sharply. Despite the softness of the soil, the impact still made me wonder whether or not I’d just received a concussion. Its hands, wet and slimy, like the whites of an egg, gripped my neck tighter, summoning dazzling swarms of silver dots before my vision as it became increasingly and rapidly harder to breathe. I heard the drag of metal on dirt; then the whoosh of something cutting through the air and the thunk of that something landing in a something else that was solid. There was a shriek of agony from the river along with the release of my neck, upon which I unsteadily tried to rise, tumbling back on my butt in no time. I scooted back from the river, as far as I could with the energy I had remaining, then collapsed against a tree trunk. My neck was burning--had the creature, no, person, broken skin?--and something warm was trickling down my face, the bridge of my nose so that I could see a wine-dark drop pass the corner of my eye. The silver flies grew in number, adding to the obscurity of the dark. I may have seen Dale standing on the riverbank, his hoe at his side, talking into the water. The silver converged into larger, separate insects, swimming in the tilt of my vision. I may have seen the figure to which the hands belonged--short, iridescent hair; pale, water-washed skin--respond. Dale turned from the river, his movements coming in between brief flashes of emptiness and silver-strewn visibility. His lips formed the syllables of my name as he came closer, beginning to double, tripled, quadruple. The forest melded into one, large blob of incoherence, the silver gnats only adding to the confusion. My eyelids flickered sporadically, my eyesight was swallowed by the silver beasts, and the burning wringing my neck only continued to spread. Soon, everything had melded into nothing.
© 2013 Writer #00Author's Note
Reviews
|
StatsAuthor
Writer #00IrrelevantAboutI'm participating in the Summer Writing Project through Jukepop.com, an online serial website, those entering had to submit a novella on Jukepop.com. The finalists will be decided by the number of +V.. more..Writing
|
![[send message]](https://www.writerscafe.org/images/mail.png){kind=small}
![[befriend]](https://www.writerscafe.org/images/friend.png){kind=small}
Share This
Email
Facebook
Twitter
Read Request
My Library
Flag Writing
